A blog about a Brownie Unit – Brownie Meeting ideas

Alternative Halloween: Literary Dress-Up Meeting

After the tremendous success of last year’s Science & Sleuth Dress-up meeting, we wanted to come back with another themed dress up event that was both educational and fun – and we didn’t want to ignore Halloween entirely, but we’re also not great at Halloween parties. Once we noticed that our plan for the year had a bit of a book theme (See All About Books), the Literary Dress-Up Meeting was born.

Pre-Meeting communication: Brownies were invited to a Literary Dress-up meeting. They were told to “come as your favourite book character (with shoes suitable for running) and bring a favourite book.”

If possible, hold this meeting at your Local Library and enlist the Librarian to lead the discussion part.

Last night’s meeting Plan

6:30: Arrival – Decorate a bookmark Craft:

Hawk Owl pre-cut bookmarks from card stock and as girls arrived they got a blank bookmark with markers and stickers. The finished bookmarks were handed in to the Owls to be “laminated” with packing tape. Starry Owl did the laminating during the discussion and handed them out at the end as girls were leaving.Supplies: Card stock, markers/pencil crayons, stickers, packing tape. (Or do the Draw a Book Cover activity from the Reading Meeting )

Starry Owl Chan as the Paper Bag Princess. Laminating Bookmarks.

6:45: Regular Brownie Opening (we skipped inspections)

6:55: Book Discussion Hawk Owl had a collection of books and led the proceedings…she went through topics such as fiction vs. non-fiction; tables of contents and indexes; and authors and illustrators. Hawk Owl is a Library Technician so she was in her element … you may find the Parts & Pieces of Books activity from the Reading Meeting useful. To note, the girls were really interested in this so I let it run longer than I probably should have.

Hawk Owl Jen (as Hermione) leading a discussion about different types of books during our Literary Dress-Up Meeting.

I’m not a very stern Professor McGonagall, but it was a fun costume. And you can see the girls playing Letter Tag in the background.

7:40 – Girl Show & Tell (about their character and book)

Girls came as Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables (there were two!), Chester, Pippi Longstocking, a Frog fromThe Water Hole, Elly Patterson (FBoFW), Moses the Kitten, Princess Ariel, Heidi, we had two fairies (one from the Book of Fairies and one from the Daisy Meadows series – which launched a discussion about pseudonyms), Clementine, Batty Penderwick, a Sapphire (she brought in a book of gems), Caveman Jack (by local Ottawa author Tammie Winsor), and Red Riding Hood… Not to mention the Owls who were Effie Trinket, Luna Lovegood, the Paper bag Princess, Hermione, and me as Professor McGonagall. It was fun.

Snowy Owl Christine as Luna Lovegood.

7:50 – Reading Hawk Owl read Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen. The Reading Meeting suggests a few options and has a fable if you need something quickly. Look for other options in my post about Drama and Storytelling.

8:00 – Close

Next time we’d make the discussion a little shorter (my fault) to make time to do a costume parade and maybe have a group photo.